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The epilepsy clinic at Jaslok Hospital is run on every Thursday between 14:00 hrs and 16:00 hrs on the second floor (OPD section) in Room 217. It was started in August 2000 with the aim of offering comprehensive services related to epilepsy and its attendant comorbidity, psychosocial aspects, etc.

The aim of this specialty clinic is to:

o Assess patients with epilepsy,

o Verify the diagnosis,

o Establish the underlying cause,

o Classify the disorder,

o Choose or alter medications to the most appropriate for underlying syndrome, and Identify patients with refractory epilepsy who could potentially benefit from surgery.

The clinic is screening centre towards realizing these goals and run by a neurologist with an abiding interest in epilepsy. It functions in concert with a special team especially interested in epilepsy related problems.

This team includes:

o Neurophysiologists

o Neuropsychologist

o Neuroradiologist

o Neurosurgeon with expertise in epilepsy surgery

o Specially trained neurophysiology technicians

o An in-house medical social worker

The time allocated to each patient is suitable towards realizing these above goals in the assessment of a patient with epilepsy. A systematic assessment of patients guided by a specially designed questionnaire is the usual screening instrument. Suitable patients subsequently undergo a specially designed epilepsy protocol MRI, video-telemetry assessment, and functional imaging like ictal SPECT scan. The video-telemetry unit is closely associated with the screening assessment of patients with poorly controlled epilepsy in the epilepsy clinic. Women with epilepsy are counseled about reproduction related issues in epilepsy and appropriate therapeutic changes when warranted are introduced.

"Dr Joy D. Desai is a consultant neurologist and DNB teacher for Neurology at the Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre. He completed his MBBS and MD in Internal Medicine from the BJ Medical College, Ahmedabad, Gujarat. During this period he was the recipient of three gold medals. He then moved to Mumbai and completed his DNB in Neurology at the Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre. During this period he was trained by Professors Noshir Wadia, Piroja Wadia, Sarosh Katrak, and Anil Desai. He attributes his neurological skills to their tutelage. During this tenure he participated in departmental clinical research.

He then moved to The Royal London Hospital, London, UK for a period of three years for a fellowship in clinical neurology. He participated in clinical research and published extensively. He joined the Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre as Consultant in Neurology in 1999. In 2000, he took a three month fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio, USA. He successfully completed a Comprehensive Epileptology Course conducted by the Cleveland Clinic and passed the examination with an outstanding percentage.

Since 2000 he conducts the weekly specialist Epilepsy Clinic at Jaslok Hospital where he evaluates patients with refractory epilepsy for potential treatments and epilepsy surgery. He is an active participant in the video-EEG evaluation of such patients at Jaslok Hospital. Under his supervision, more than 90 patients have undergone epilepsy surgery after a comprehensive evaluation by the epilepsy evaluation team. More than 5000 patients have been evaluated and many have been rendered seizure free on rationalization of anti-epileptic drug regimes.

Many of his national and international presentations have been a spin-off of this experience. He is currently the secretary of the Mumbai Epilepsy Association. The Epilepsy Clinic at Jaslok Hospital offers services for the comprehensive evaluation of patients with epilepsy and epilepsy mimics. The clinic functions in close association with departments of clinical neurophysiology, radiology, functional imaging, neuropsychology , and stereotactic and functional neurosurgery."